WipBox launches WipBox Mobile. Search for what something’s worth, right from an SMS-enabled phone.
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When I built the first version of WipBox, it was created to help me sell my stuff in my move from LA back to the Bay Area.  Although it had its bugs, it did exactly what it was designed for.  It liquidated my extra stuff driving my moving costs from …

Now you can edit your photos on WipBox using Snipshot.
Now that it’s fully integrated, all you have to do is click ‘Edit’ after you’ve uploaded your photo and you’ll be immediately taken into the editor. We’ve set i…

first of all its more like 6% for 15-20k AND these kids instantly have an in with everyone important in the valley. You can’t put a monetary value on instant respect and attention. Try doing that with prosper.com…

Charles River Ventures offers 250,000 quickstart grants, which could appeal to Y Combinator type companies.

Also Lightspeed Venture Partners in Menlo Park: $10,000 grants per team member, for free.

In particular, I am curious about two things:

(1) How is Tsumobi going to get onto the user’s phone? If installing JME apps is too hard for an end-user, and Tsumobi is a JME app, then isn’t Tsumobi itself too hard to install? Why would handset manufacturers and/or carriers pre-load Tsumobi onto phones?

(2) Is Tsumobi something that can be embedded into another JME application (basically, a scripting framework), or is it a standalone app that works like a midlet manager + Nokia Catalog?

I am developing some tools that sound a lot like Tsumobi based on the description above, which is why I’m so curious.

How about you pitch in to help starving 20-something entrepreneurs get a leg up in the world?

Mouth –> money.

Assume that y combinator companies are rational decision-makers.

To all the trolls who hate on the companies themselves:

1) most startups fail, so what’s worse about this list? especially considering its comprised of young hackers making something out of nothing in ~2 months on a shoestring

2) do you have stats to prove that any of these companies are failing to attract people who like what they have to offer?

3) vc’s and angels invest in y combinator companies; bets are actively being made against your opinions. cheers.

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@ carmen: your web site = fresh idea?

these improved ‘features’ praobly wouldn’t see the traffic needed to be acquisition-worthy unless they were actually acquired (since the companies whose products are being fixed, have amassed enough talent to fix it themselves), which is the second chicken and egg. so i do think these guys have their work cut out for them.

the main disappointment is the lack of fresh ideas. wheres the distributed peer-moderated replacement for the FDA/FCC/IRS? what about the dollar itself? the last thing we need is another twittr..

Why won’t you own 90% of your company? You invented it…. That’s right… Not the investors…..

Greed is good for investors. You founders should give your money back to investors!!!

Even a great product, on merit alone, won’t get the attention it deserves. Before you’re in the Y Combinator program, you’ll be fighting for attention. Afterwards, you’ll be in meetings with the most prominent investors in the valley — it’s really a stamp of approval of sorts for investors. And this helps along every stage: product advice from the best out there, a kick-start to the investment game, connections when it comes time for an exit, and sometimes a boot in the ass saying: “Don’t get distracted, make something people want”.

true that. what a gip. $5,000 for 6%? c’mon.

Kiko got, what, $300K? Given that valuation going in was at least $100-150K, and there was probably some money put in after the initial seed, it is not clear there was much of a win there. Reddit was more of a hit, but even that I doubt got more than $3-4 million, netting Paul $300-400K.

There aren’t all that many acquisition opportunities out there, and the few large public players know they have all the leverage (suits can negotiate better than geeks can!) so it is harder and harder to score that cool hit you can brag about to your friends for ever (like Paul has been doing ever since he unloaded ViaWeb on Yahoo). Like a good general, Paul is executing a battleplan ideal for the go-go 90s. May be this time around, private equity or hedge funds will do some web roll-ups and offer Paul a good ROI and an opportunity to smirk about dumb suits but …